In a major setback, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) lost the battle against International Cricket Council (ICC), as most of the members of the apex Cricket body voted against India’s stand of reversing the planned changes in the revenue sharing formula and governance and constitutional changes.

On the very first day of the ICC Board Meeting, held recently the agendas of the governance structure and revenue sharing model was targeted. However, BCCI did not get any support on governance and constitutional changes and lost by a margin of 1-9. Also, it lost by 2-8 on the revenue sharing model, which was only supported by Sri-Lanka.

The revamped revenue model got the support of eight out of a total of 10 ICC members while nine of them were in support of constitutional changes. In the meeting, BCCI voted against both the proposed changes as it has been maintaining that all this is completely unacceptable for them.

It is to be recalled that BCCI had completely rejected the additional USD 100 million payouts in revenue. Later, the amount was raised to USD 290 million which is USD 280 million less from the USD 570 million that BCCI has been receiving till 2016.

Amid the defeat in voting, it is largely possible that India may pull out of the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) ignored the April 25 deadline to announce the team for the forthcoming tournament, scheduled to be played between June 1 and June 18, 2017. The Indian Cricket body has said that it will announce the team only after the ICC Board Meeting concludes on April 27.

It is worth mentioning that BCCI has been batting for not scrapping the ‘Big Three’ of ICC that include India, Australia, and England, otherwise they will be forced to exercise the Members Participation Agreement (MPA) that enables the Indian Cricket body to shun the tournament.

The present situation also speculates chances of the talks over a bilateral series between India and Pakistan may also resume at the ICC Board meeting, which was lately shelved on India’s call. Earlier in the year 2016, India had refused to play with Pakistan amidst the continuous ceasefire violations by Pakistani security forces across the Indo-Pak border. BCCI had cited Indian government’s disapproval for not abiding by the MoU signed by both the nations to play with each other.

However, Pakistan Cricket Board has been strongly opposing the constitutional structure that provides veto power to BCCI. Earlier, also PCB had condemned India’s decision of refusing to play with Pakistan saying that this was a clear misuse of power.

In the second phase of the meeting, it is expected that the BBCI officials post discussing this issue with their seniors here would open their cards before the ICC members. Also, the day can witness them taking the crucial decision of playing in the champions trophy or not.